Tag: Reality Check

Shaft

LORELAI: I’m going to be so cool in there you will mistake me for Shaft.

John Shaft is a fictional African-American private detective based in New York City. He first appeared in the 1970 detective novel Shaft by Ernest Tidyman, adapted into a film of the same name in 1971 which was directed by Gordon Parks with Richard Roundtree in the title role; Ernest Tidyman was one of the screenwriters. The movie was successful and well-received by both white and black audience members, in large part because of John Shaft’s elegant flair, and the excellent score by Isaac Hayes, which won an Academy Award.

John Shaft detective novels continued being published through the 1970s, and Shaft went on to become a television series from 1973-74, with Richard Roundtree continuing in the role of John Shaft. Two sequels to Shaft were produced in the 1970s.

Shaft came out in June 2000 – not a remake or reboot, but another sequel. In this film, Samuel L. Jackson plays John Shaft II, the nephew of the original John Shaft. It did well at the box office and received generally positive reviews.

Lorelai and Rory could easily have seen the new Shaft the preceding summer, but knowing Lorelai’s love of 1970s cinema, she is probably (mostly) referring to the original film here. The 2000 Shaft soundtrack is R&B and hip-hop – I don’t know if this helps explain Lorelai’s supposed “love of rap” or not.

Freud

LORELAI: You’re going to quote Freud to me? ‘Cause I’ll push you in front of a moving car.

After Luke says it’s not surprising that Rory is attracted to a boy who reminds Lorelai of Rory’s dad Christopher, she believes he might be thinking of Freud.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. The Oedipus complex – named after the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles – was a theory he coined in 1910, to describe a child’s unconscious sexual desire for their opposite-sex parent. Some modern psychologists broadly agree with his theory, while others find no evidence it exists. Studies apparently suggest that we are more likely to seek partners with vague physical similarity to our parents.

Luke says that he just meant that Lorelai and Rory are quite alike in their tastes, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise they would be attracted to similar men.

 

“When do you have time?”

RORY: When do you have time to watch General Hospital?

A question we’d all like answered – General Hospital in on weekdays in the afternoons, when Lorelai is at work. Yet somehow she has managed to keep up with the show for at least the last few years. American soap operas are notoriously slow-paced, so that Lorelai could theoretically keep up with the show by only watching it sometimes. Even so, how did she manage to watch even a few episodes while at work?

Note that this is another example of shortness of time being mentioned.

Rory’s Present

Lorelai’s birthday present to Rory is an indigo iBook Apple Macintosh laptop. The iBook line of laptops first came out in 1999, and were discontinued in 2006. The model Rory has was released in September 2000, and cost about $1500 at the time. Lorelai most likely bought it from the Apple store in Hartford, located in the mall. Throughout the show, Rory was shown to have remained loyal to Apple products.

So Lorelai bought Rory a hip $1500 Apple Mac laptop that would be helpful for school for her birthday, and somehow convinced her wealthy, generous mother Emily that it would be a great idea to buy Rory a junky useless $12 bracelet for her birthday. Well played Lorelai, well played.

“Ten generations of Gellers”

PARIS: Ten generations of Gellers have gone to Harvard. I have to go to Harvard.

According to Paris, the Geller family have been attending Harvard University since the 18th century. This doesn’t seem possible, as the Gellers are Jewish, and at that time Jews weren’t permitted to attend Harvard (and tended to be excluded from higher education, and many other institutions). The first Jewish student at Harvard in 1720 had to convert to Christianity, and still wasn’t really accepted. Even in the twentieth century, there were heavy restrictions on Jews attending Harvard.

It is possible that Paris is lying in a desperate attempt to persuade Rory that she “deserves” to go to Harvard more than Rory does. Of course later on Paris and Rory do attend the same university together.

Damien’s

EMILY: Well good. I’ll meet you at Damien’s tomorrow at three o’clock.

A fictional department store, perhaps an equivalent to the real life Filene’s department store in Hartford (originally G. Fox and Co.), which was sold to Macy’s in 2006. The scenes in Damien’s were filmed at the Burbank Town Center shopping mall in Burbank, California.

Cumquat

JACKSON: For some time now I’ve been toying with cross-pollination. Finally I’ve got it. I figured out a way to cross a raspberry with a cumquat.

A cumquat is a small cold-hardy citrus fruit native to south Asia and the Asia-Pacific. They were introduced to Europe and North America from China in the 19th century.

In reality, it is not possible to cross a cumquat with a raspberry. It’s clearly just a joke by the scriptwriter, but if you were determined to make this a semi-believable situation, yellow raspberries do exist, and Jackson might have bred one with an especially sharp, citrus-y flavour, making him over-excitedly believe that he had somehow crossed a raspberry with a cumquat.